Not Here Looking for Absolution
by tore-my-yellow-dress
Summary: And then Raymond Reddington pushes her up against a wall. Post 2x08. Lizzington.


The first time she held a loaded gun with the safety off, Frank had widened her stance with a hard denim thigh, skeleton hands at her waist, and since then every time Lizzie hears a click of a chamber she closes her eyes and she's seventeen again, blue hicky on her collarbone, anticipation ringing in her eardrums and_ knowing_ the shot is coming.

She has this _knack_ for sensing endings, even if sometimes she doesn't quite know who'll be covered in blood and who'll be doing the actually bleeding.

It's always been like this, okay? It's just how it is.

She's never regretted Frank because he's the person that taught her the hardest thing about life is waiting for the entry wound, not being able to calculate the direct projectile because, _"There's so many different factors, Lizzie. Nothing in life is certain_."

The Story goes that after Omaha and growing up, Lizzie realized the dollies she held so tightly to her chest were burnt, and, well, she put them in a very dark box in the back of her closet.

She started recognizing the boys with trails of smoke and bodies behind them like human apocalypses, which is funny, because Tom was never supposed to be a harbinger. Tom was just a school teacher. So she never saw Tom coming, and that's her fault, okay? She fucked up. But, but listen, but look- other than Tom, she got better at knowing the carnivorous beings from the soft things that kissed her goodbye and wanted babies and a mortgage payment. She gotten better at running from things with teeth.

She gotten better at running.

/

/

/

Butterball comes with a Story, you know.

Liz was six and it'd been almost a year since flames licked up her wrist, pink flesh begging white. Her baby hands barely reached the top of the counter, Thanksgiving preparations in full swing, and she hardly participated in the past, in her other life that she couldn't even remember, so she watched avidly that particular holiday, like the scene of Sam slicing the ham echoed Saturday morning cartoons, and how she loved those, so.

"Daddy," she'd whispered, catching his attention. "Can I be a Butterball?"

Sam had turned his head, painting on a smile at the way it felt to hear his child- his child now- call him by that title, despite the fact his young and handsome face contorted in confusion. "What, Lizzie?"

"You say I'm _a turkey_," Lizzie had wrinkled up her little nose. "So if I'm a turkey, can I be a Butterball?"

/

/

/

/

/

/

It's only The Story because Stories are up for interpretation.

So maybe Lizzie never really got better, she just got better at keeping it under the dustiest piece of hardwood flooring.

Maybe Elizabeth Scott Keen never rid herself of this innate want she's always had, embedded in her skin. It's been this way since she was a little girl and Sam had her on his lap, the way it'd be Halloween and he'd tell her the bedtime story about Dracula and Frankenstein and she'd giggle. How even if it's decades later she's still finding the prospect of monsters so _amusing. _It's the same rush she feels at hearing Raymond Reddington say her name for the first time; this sweet, sickening obsession with Hiroshimas in her chest.

She doesn't walk across the street or down it, she just lives in the middle, waiting for the car crash, waiting for Red to bring the end of the world, waiting to join him in the middle of the chaos and destruction and waiting for the day when she can rest assured that she will never, ever be alone again because she's taking his hand, aand maybe Red is like this too, maybe he's got a thigh between her legs and he's helping her with the gun, and they're aiming, and they're aiming and the shot is coming.

And they're aiming for something she can't even see.

/

/

/

Another Story, one Lizzie doesn't know, goes a little like this:

"You'll never guess what she said today, Red. I'll give you a play by play once you tell me how you've been," Sam choked out in way of greeting, puffing one brown cigar with the phone to his ear.

"Terrible," had come a swift, strained reply. "And you know what would make it better? Hearing whatever Elizabeth said."

/

/

/

There are better things to do with her night off.

Liz worries for the car's leather interior, but Red thinks about vehicles like shoes, so she guesses the only reason to be bothered with the red, sticky liquid coating her hands is to be afraid for her soul, to be afraid for her own morality. He's got his jaw set, won't look at her.

Everything smells like copper and Lizzie gnaws at her bottom lip, skin pale in the glow of November, the ash skies, the palpitating heart, and she can't quite get her breathing to fall even.

But Red's breathing is fine, and so Lizzie tries to match the sound, tries to _calm down. _

"It's going to be okay, Lizzie," he murmurs, low.

"I know it is," she hisses back. In a feeble attempt at conveying her sanctity, she entwines her fingers and squeezes her hands together until everything goes white. It's no use, really. The blood makes ugly squishing sounds and she winces, and oh well. It was an attempt.

Lizzie focuses her dilated pupils on the route Dembe is taking, the woman and the little boy walking down the sidewalk in the cold, and she doesn't mean for her voice to come out so loud when she says, "You're dropping me off at my apartment."

"Lizzie," she hears, to her right, but she won't look at him.

If he won't look at her she sure as hell won't look at him.

"Take me to my apartment," she repeats roughly, migraine building behind her temples. Red must acquiesce, must give Dembe some signal to comply, because the next moment the car is making a distinctive turn in the other direction. There's Christmas music playing on the radio, low enough that there's a mock of silence. There's Christmas music and Lizzie thinks of this time last year, missing Red and his hats, and she looks at somebody's life on her hands, going numb in her lap, thinks about what her hands are capable of.

There's a warm gun in the front seat, ready for Dembe to clean.

Beside her, Red begins to hum and Lizzie can't figure out if it's _I'll Be Home for Christmas _or _Grandma Got Run Over_.

/

It's bitingly frigid, wind chilling bone deep, when she slams the car door and trudges up the blunt stairs to her confined space. She's barely in the warmth of adequate shelter two minutes, fed the dog, checked her email, before there's a knock at her door, and she assumes it's her neighbor, Claudia, maybe asking if Lizzie can watch her cat-

But it's not.

It's not.

/

He doesn't give up.

"Dembe can't just sit in the car," Lizzie tries to argue sharp like a serrated knife, but he just shakes his head at her with a wide smile and damn him.

"Of course not. I've given him the night off," Red explains. Damn him to hell.

He acts as if it's no big deal that he's just invited himself over, no big deal that all she has is a queen and a futon, no big deal that there's somebody's actual DNA all over her hands, and she killed somebody today, and he's stopped smiling but now he just looks at her like she's foolish, like she doesn't understand day and night from one another.

And then he says, "I won't let you be alone tonight, Elizabeth."

The only reason Lizzie turns and runs like a balloon to a needle is because she knows deep in her gut that if she looks at him one moment longer she might slap his face and that's not a _smart _thing to do.

/

There's hydrogen peroxide in the first aid kit next to the tampons.

Little miracles.

/

She comes out of the bathroom ten minutes later to find that he waited for her exit, coat strewn across the kitchen counter, hat still on, and that could make her bristle because the treatment rings similar to that of a parent coddling a toddler, but she's smiling at the sight, even if it's a painful kind of thing, because he seems so other, so alien.

He seems so out of place, here, where she lives.

Champagne should rest in ice, strawberries, a five star rug for the way he paces back and forth, sauntering regardless of ease, and Lizzie looks at his expensive shoes and knows the creak of the floor is an insult, yes.

There's a pair of dirty socks from two days ago in the middle of the floor because she has not had time to do laundry.

Her eyes are _burning, _and not from tears_. _

Lizzie inhales sharply, and cocks an eyebrow. "Why are you here?"

Red's mouth slackens, goes to repeat, "Because I don't want you to be alo-

"No," she cuts him off, walking around her dismal kitchen to find the whiskey, the vodka, something good enough to make everything fuzzy and-

"Why won't you leave me alone?"

"Because…"

Red clears his throat, moves towards her and watches her find glasses, secretly memorizing where they come from, the bowls next to the glasses, the silverware in the drawer with the-

"I care for you," Red puts it simply, blinking.

Lizzie's breath leaves her in a gust. "Why the _hell _do you care for me?"

There's bravado in the way he moves in closer, not too much, but just near enough that the shadows cast off by his fedora make it seem like an old movie, and she's always waiting, and he goes, "Intelligence. Valor. Compassion. Strength. Beaut-

"Bullshit," she stops him, eyes flashing, and Red falters, inclining his head.

Lizzie proceeds to toss back a shot of Jack.

His tone loses an umpteenth amount of the nonchalance. "Then why do _you _think I care for you, Lizzie? You're the behavioral analyst with the Bureau. Enlighten me."

They're in her flimsy excuse of a kitchen now, nothing more than cabinets and a mini fridge and maybe a microwave in the corner. Old, dilapidated cabinets and flowery wallpaper, no burners, just less than six feet of breathing space and a glass bottle on the counter and his lips in her face, close enough to touch, close enough. He is close enough for her to hurt.

"Your pathetic need for a good game is one. Your whole life is a series of games," she murmurs, filling up his glass as she says it. She doesn't get to see the look that comes over his face when she tells him, "I'm a very valuable piece to play with. In fact, I think I might just win you the whole thing."

But she does sense his body tense like he's been struck.

Liz looks up and his eyes have widened and his mouth parts as if he's about to say something, but she stops him, speaks with conviction. "Two: you knew my biological father."

"I did," Red nods because he wants to be bitter, wants to wound, mouth slams shut in a grim line, and then he sucks back the shot glass and Lizzie watches his throat work, her cheeks reddening. No other words are spoken on the matter, and Lizzie moves on, this time pouring a shot for them both. Mayday. Mayday. Mayday.

"Also," Lizzie whispers, "it's a possibility that I'm redemption. I bet you'd give anything for me to make up for what you've done. For me to suddenly transform into the daughter that you abandoned."

The bottle shakes as she tips, and her mouth dries out when Red grunts audibly.

The sirens crying, the train howling.

"Newsflash, Reddington," snarls from between her lips before she can help it, and she meets his eyes, cold and hard, and this is it, this is-

"Your daughter probably hates you, and I do too."

Lizzie closes her eyes because she doesn't want to see the aftermath.

Burning sensation rushing down her throat, and Red sloshes his back at the same time.

They release, wince at the taste bud rebellion in unison. Red rests his glass back on the cheap counter, but Lizzie, Lizzie moves her arm back as fast as Sam taught her to, and hurls the breakable at the wall.

It shatters in the way a ship sets sail, sets off, and Lizzie sets off across the apartment in the next jarring millisecond, and she doesn't care what the hell he's doing as long as he's gone by the time she wakes up in the morning, and-

And then he follows her.

And then he moves faster than she does and wraps his grip around her forearms and pushes and pushes and Lizzie is too flabbergasted that he's even touching her to respond properly so she just goes and-

-and then Raymond Reddington backs her against a wall.

/

She's frozen but he is smoldering, his body a live wire at nine million watts, and Lizzie is shadowed by his hat but she can actually smell his breath and hear the hitch, and he's pressed up against her. Holy shit, he's honest to God pressed up against her, to the point that she-

"Let's get one thing straight," he spits each syllable like a reckoning, and the way he's got his fingers pressed like skeletons kind of hurts, but it kind of doesn't, it doesn't hurt, and she knows he's telling the truth when he looks her in the eye and tells her, "You are not my daughter."

-to the point that she can feel hard flesh covered by material pressed against her thigh, and.

Lizzie's mouth forms an o, her eyebrows furrowing, and her hands sweating where he has her pressed against plaster. He closes his mouth and their chests heave like they've been running miles and miles to go still. Miles to go, so Lizzie does not answer him in response, just drops her head, drops his gaze.

She looks down, between them, identifies how and where they are positioned.

Looks back up, and he's swallowing hard, and then she- then Lizzie slightly, wordlessly, shamelessly- with every unspoken word and intention and knowledge conveyed in a single look-

Lizzie rubs herself against him.

/

The Story is that they were watching a John Wayne movie on AMC.

/

There's an element of truth in the way neither deny how wrong their actions are: the way he does not take her to bed, does not give her kisses and moonlight and rose petals, the way none of it is beautiful. The way they never get fully undressed.

The way everything just ends when they aren't meeting each other's eyes and shit, it's not supposed to be like this, how she unbuckles his belt and he's helping her get at least halfway out of her jeans and he turns her around, right there, against the wall.

It's a rush and their hands are startlingly efficient and within seconds and second her panties are pushed to the side and Lizzie is bared to the cold air and there's wasn't even a kiss, wasn't even-

"Spread your legs," he says, and she does, hands pressed on either side of her head against the wall, him steadying, him nudging against her wetness with the head of his-

Lizzie moans, and focuses on her fingernails, and realizes she's still got blood underneath them.

/

When it hits her, a ripple goes through her body so strong that she slaps her hand against the wall and thinks she's going to fall to the floor, knees buckling-

But he holds her up, still slamming his hips against her, and she can't even see his eyes and he hasn't even kissed her, but Red does hold onto her for dear life, groaning under his breath and she looks down and realizes his hat got knocked off, his hat is on the floor, and the magnitude of what they've just done hasn't quite hit her yet because he feels so good, even in the aftermath, it feels so good, and fuck.

Lizzie looks down at the carpet and he slides out of her and she grunts the word like a promise.

Fuck, that better come out of the carpet.

/

She doesn't look at him as he gets his pants up, tells him she's going to take a shower.

She does, too.

A good, long, hot one.

/

He is smoking a Cuban when she finds him, hair dripping, a blue towel wrapped around her body. She'd forgotten her pajamas, but now he's got his shoes off, relaxed back on her bed with his belt still absent, and she steadies herself and wonders why she's never thought of him like this, as a human being that engages in normal, awkward afters.

She won't go back into the bathroom to change. It's silly, considering they've just-

Well. Considering.

Lizzie wants to comment on the smoking but she doesn't, can't bring herself to when she allows the towel to drop and watches him in her vanity watch her as she slips into an old t-shirt and a pair of sleep shorts, and she knows his eyes are lingering on the bare skin of her ass, and-

Okay, maybe not awkward.

"You want to know something?" Red asks once she's turned to him, and takes another puff of his cigar. His eyes are unnervingly vacant.

"Sam is rolling in his grave right now."

/

"Happy Thanksgiving, Lizzie," he tells her later, when all the lights are out, and she's fast asleep against his clothed chest.

/

Sometime on down the line Lizzie is crying and saying, "_Please, no. Red. Please tell me it's not true, please tell me you weren't working with- please. Please. Please, Red. Please."_

And he's hurt her, and he can barely live with himself, and he's trying to make it all make sense.

And he goes, _"Lizzie, look at me. Look at me, sweetheart. There are parts of the story you don't know about. I promise you will understand once you have all the pieces." _

_._

_._

_._

_fin. _

_**A/N- I am so happy you finished this piece and never hit the back button. Look, okay, I know that was absolute dog crap, and it felt uncomfortably unsettling, but that's my current frame of mind and that's what the muse produced, so oh well. Reviews are much, much appreciated! This was all disclaimed, btw. xoxo.**_


End file.
